The 1940s-era L-shaped brick building in Clear Lake, Iowa, looks rather plain from the outside. The only indication of the building’s fame is a memorial marker noting the deaths of three 1950s rock-and-roll stars. The Surf Ballroom is the last place that Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson played before they lost their lives in a plane crash just a few miles from the ballroom. Read more
It’s not uncommon to see groups of young women, very often bachelorette parties, hopping from winery to winery via limousine along Midwest wine trails. Wine tasting is a popular date among couples, too, standing at the tasting bar, sipping a half dozen or so wines and then moving on to the next winery along the trail. In the past couple of decades the number of wineries in the Midwest has exploded. It seems the more wineries on a trail, the more popular the trail. Traverse City, Michigan, and nearby Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsulas are home to over 50 wineries. The area is a magnet for wine lovers. We visited some of the Traverse City wineries during our recent visit. Read more
“Watch the person in front of you.” “Put your paddle all the way in the water, straight down.” “Lean forward and use your entire body.” These were some of the instructions our Lighthouse Lizards dragon boat team received just before racing–and as panic started to set in. Read more
It was a perfect summer weekend, sunshine with a few puffy clouds dotting the azure sky, a slight breeze and low humidity, ideal for a summer stroll through gardens of colorful flowers, hedge-lined pathways, cascading waterfalls, and arbors with benches for relaxing and taking in the beauty. We visited three gardens in and near Champaign County, Illinois, on that weekend, all only 15 to 30 miles apart. Two of the gardens, Allerton Park and the UI Arboretum, are owned by the University of Illinois, and the Mabery Gelvin Botanical Garden is part of the Champaign County Forest Preserve District.
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Allerton Park & Retreat Center
Once the estate of Robert Henry Allerton, the property was donated to the University of Illinois, along with the income from the 1946 farm crops to establish operating funds. Today the 1500 acre park, one of the seven wonders of Illinois, includes the Georgian Manor house used for events, seven natural setting trails totaling 14 miles, and 14 formal gardens that include extensive plantings and over 100 sculptures and ornaments. Walk down paved pathways lined with Chinese musicians, stroll through the walled garden, or climb the spiral staircase in the House of the Golden Buddahs for a view of the gardens from above.
Allerton Park & Retreat Center is located at 515 Old Timber Road, Monticello, Illinois.
University of Illinois Arboretum
Considered a living laboratory, the UI Arboretum includes plant collections and facilities for teaching, research and public service programs. However, as a non-student, you can simply visit to enjoy the beauty, much of it made possible through donations by generous alumni. Bursts of color in the Idea Garden’s border annuals and the Children’s Garden create a cheerful atmosphere, while the calm serenity of the gardens surrounding the Japan House will leave you feeling tranquil . Development of the 160 acre arboretum property began in the early 1980s. Today 57 acres are developed, leaving plenty of room for further growth.
The University of Illinois Arboretum is located on Lincoln Avenue in Urbana, Illinois. Check the web site for detailed directions.
Mabery Gelvin Botanical Garden
This gem of a small eight-acre garden is tucked behind the Museum of the Grand Prairie in the Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve in Mahomet, Illinois. The garden includes a one-room schoolhouse and a Japanese garden with a waterfall backdrop and a bright red bridge crossing a pond filled with water lilies. Lots of flowers indigenous to Illinois, like the purple coneflower and the yellow daylily are displayed throughout the garden.
While you are there, be sure to visit the museum and the rest of the forest preserve. Our time was limited, but I would have loved to have rented a paddle boat to pedal around the lake. The Mabery Gelvin Botanical Garden is located at 650 N Lombard Street, Mahomet, Illinois.
See more photos of the gardens in the video slideshow:
http://youtu.be/4tSYI2wgHRs&rel=0
You can easily visit all three gardens in one day, although we broke it into two days and visited area wineries, too. There is no admission fee for any of the three gardens.
Disclosure: Our visit to the Champaign area was hosted by the Champaign County CVB, but any opinions expressed in this post are my own. Our accommodations were at the Hyatt Place Champaign Hotel.
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The brewery burns for seven hours, and the fire is put out with “green beer.” The owner is kidnapped by the mob during Prohibition. These are things movies are made of, but they are true events in the history of the oldest brewery in the Midwest and the second oldest in the nation. You’ll learn about these stories during your tours of the Minhas Craft Brewery and the Minhas Micro Distillery.
Minhas Craft Brewery Tour
The Minhas family has owned the Monroe, Wisconsin, brewery for less than ten years, but the history goes back to 1845 when Mr. Bissinger opened the Monroe Brewery. If you grew up in the Midwest, you may remember the Joseph Huber Brewing Company, Augsburger beer and brewmaster Hans Kestler from radio commercials in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This is the same brewery.
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In the beginning, beer was brewed only in the winter and produced only few hundred barrels per year. Almost 170 years and several owners, name changes and expansions later, Minhas Craft Brewery produces 275,000 barrels each year, and as of June 2014 was on track to brew 325,000 barrels for the year.
You’ll start your tour in the Lazy Mutt Lounge, where you are welcome to sample the beer and munch popcorn while watching an introductory film. Don’t worry about not having time to sample enough because you’ll have more time for that later.
The tour then moves outdoors, where your guide will point out the two separate buildings divided by a street. The beer is brewed in one building and then sent through a tunnel beneath the street to the bottling building.
Inside the brewery, your guide will talk about the ingredients that go into beer, including barley grown in Wisconsin, and about the entire brewing process. We weren’t able to go into the brew house on the day we toured for safety (and comfort) reasons since the kettle reaches temperatures of 225 degrees.
As the tour continues across the street with the pasteurizing and bottling processes, your guide will point out the different processes used for cans and bottles. At the end of the tour you’ll be given a six-pack that includes four different beer brands, a bottle of root beer and a keepsake glass.
Afterward you may go back to the Lazy Mutt Lounge for more beer and/or soda tastings and to browse the gift shop and the museum rooms, where walls are lined with beer advertising artifacts. Even the ceiling in the ladies room is covered with beer labels.
Minhas Micro Distillery Tour
The Minhas Micro Distillery opened in 2012 in space formerly used by the brewery. Gather first in the tasting room, where you can begin tasting the spirits.
The tour officially begins with an introductory film describing the distilling process, followed by a short tour of the small distillery and the bottling process, which is far less automated than the brewery bottling process. You will receive a full-size bottle of alcohol, as well as your tasting glass, to take home with you
Be sure to stick around afterward to go back to the tasting room and gift shop where you’ll see Godstilla, the 1,000 gallon still.
To survive the Prohibition years, the company made ice cream and near beer, among other ventures. To make near beer, full-strength beer first needed to be made and then the alcohol removed. The dealcoholizing was done in a back room. The original sign for that room now hangs in the distillery tasting room.
Instead of dumping the alcohol from the near beer down the drain, it was sold on the black market, in Chicago mob territory. When the mob found out about it, they kidnapped the owner, Fred Blumer. While tasting spirits after the tour, you’ll be treated to a film that will capture your attention about the 1931 kidnapping. The tasting room happens to be Blumer’s former office.
The Minhas Craft Brewery is located at 1208 14th Avenue and the Minhas Micro Distillery is located at 1404 13th Street in Monroe, Wisconsin. Tours are conducted daily and cost $10 each; however, the take-home gifts alone are worth that amount. Check the web site for times and further details. Note that photos are not allowed in production areas.
Disclosure: My visit to Monroe, Wisconsin, was hosted by Green County Tourism, but any opinions expressed in this post are my own.
Thank you for reading Midwest Wanderer. Don’t miss a post. Enter your e-mail address below and click Subscribe to be notified whenever I publish another post. Subscription is FREE. After subscribing, be sure to click the link when you get the e-mail asking you to confirm. – Connie
400,000 pieces of mail are postmarked in the tiny town of Santa Claus, Indiana’s, post office each Christmas season. In addition, around 13,000 letters addressed to Santa Claus from children all over the United States are delivered here each year. It isn’t only during the holiday season that Santa Claus celebrates, though. The town embraces and capitalizes on its name, attracting tourists who come to celebrate Christmas year-round.
History
Originally called Santa Fee, the town was forced to change its name when it applied for a post office because the name too closely resembled the existing Indiana town of Santa Fe. There are several stories of how the name Santa Claus came to be, but the most popular is that during a meeting on Christmas Eve about renaming the town, a gust of wind blew the door open and the sound of sleigh bells was heard. A little girl yelled, “It’s Santa Claus!” and all agreed that’s what they would name the town.
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The Post Office Department started forwarding letters addressed to Santa to the Santa Claus post office in 1914, and the newly named postmaster, James Martin, began answering them. In 1931 the postmaster general tried to change the name of the town to alleviate the post office of the influx of letters to Santa, but the townspeople wouldn’t hear of it, and the name remained Santa Claus.
Today you’ll find many businesses in Santa Claus that focus on Christmas, like the Santa Claus Christmas Store; associate their names with Christmas, like the Holiday Foods grocery store; or simply display a holiday icon, like the Santa Claus statue outside the local Subway shop.
Attractions
You’ll find plenty to do in Santa Claus to keep you busy, particularly in the summer months.
Santa Claus Christmas Store
Start your holiday shopping early in this 9,000 square foot store that’s everything Christmas. There seems to be no end to Christmas ornament displays, Santa statues line shelves high above, and the lights of Christmas village displays twinkle festively. Christmas ornaments designed exclusively for the Santa Claus Christmas Store make great souvenirs. Kids may even be able to visit with the jolly old elf himself when he’s not away at the North Pole. Purchase a Santa Claus postcard, address it and walk it down to the post office to have it mailed with the Santa Claus postmark.
Santa Claus Post Office
It looks like any other post office, but come November the Santa Claus post office will be flooded with Christmas cards sent to them to have the Santa Claus postmark applied. Postmaster Marian says 400,000 pieces of mail come through the post office during the holiday season when a specially designed giant red postmark is stamped on envelopes. If you take the mail to the post office in person, you may even be able to apply the postmark yourself. Outside of the holiday season, you won’t get the big, special postmark, but rather the regular round black one that shows your correspondence was mailed in Santa Claus, Indiana.
Approximately 10,000 letters to Santa are delivered to the post office each year. Postmaster Marian says if letters are addressed specifically to P.O. Box 1, Santa Claus, IN 47579, they will go to the elves to be answered. However, Emily Thompson, director of the Santa Claus Museum, says the elves get many letters other than those addressed to P.O. Box 1. It must be Christmas magic.
Santa Claus Museum and Village
Located in the area that was originally the heart of town before Santa Claus grew, the Santa Claus Museum takes you through the town’s history. See a diorama of Jim Yellig as Santa Claus. Yellig began assisting with replying to Santa letters in 1930 and was also the town Santa for over 40 years. Yellig sought the help of the American Legion to answer Santa letters and is credited with keeping the tradition alive. His daughter, Pat Koch, says her father didn’t play Santa, he was Santa.
The museum’s display of antique toys takes you back to a nostalgic yesteryear, and one room is devoted to the history of Santa Claus Land, the forerunner to today’s Holiday World Theme Park and Spashin’ Safari Water Park.
The original Santa Claus post office, used only until 1881, had previously been restored and used as the House of Dolls at Holiday World. In 2012 the building was moved to the Santa Claus Museum property and refurbished to resemble an old-fashioned post office.The building is equipped with a handful of old school desks where children may sit and write letters to Santa.
Children drop the letters into the elves’ mailbox and jingle the bells as a signal to the elves to pick them up. All letters that include a valid address will receive a return letter the following Christmas season.
Also on the museum property is a 22-foot tall, 40 ton concrete statue of Santa, constructed in 1935, as well as the Deutsch Evangelische St. Paul’s Kirche, also called Santa Claus Church. The church belonged to several denominations before being moved in 2012 from its original site about a half mile away to the museum property. The church is used for events like Christmas concerts and the Halloween Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Holiday World and Splashin’ Safari
Pay one price for admission to both Holiday World and Splashin’ Safari. The Holiday World Theme Park is divided into four holidays: Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween and the Fourth of July and offers thrilling rides and entertaining shows. Bring your swimsuit and cool off in the Splashin’ Safari’s Water Park.
Lake Rudolph Campground & RV Resort
Although I would technically consider it an accommodation, there is so much to do at Lake Rudolph that I’ve included it in this list of attractions. Ride paddle boats, play a round a mini golf, fish, or swim. Lake Rudolph even has its own small water park.
Santa Claus’ peak season is the summer when the holidays are furthest from most people’s minds. However, a visit to Santa Claus will put you in the holiday mood, no matter if it’s 90 degrees outside.
Santa Claus is located in southern Indiana. For information on more Santa Claus attractions, visit the Spencer County Visitors Bureau web site.
Disclosure: My visit to Santa Claus was hosted by the Spencer County Visitors Bureau. However, any opinions expressed in this post are my own.
Thank you for reading Midwest Wanderer. Don’t miss a post. Enter your e-mail address below and click Subscribe to be notified whenever I publish another post. Subscription is FREE. After subscribing, be sure to click the link when you get the e-mail asking you to confirm. – Connie
